Jewish Book Week culminated a week ago with a stormy session, in which Alan Rusbridger and David Landau took to the stage in front of a largely hostile crowd, several hundred-strong, to discuss reporting from the Middle East. Winning over an audience made up in the main of conservative Jews was never going to be easy for the editors of the Guardian and Haaretz, given the dubious reputations of both their papers in Anglo-Jewish circles.

Against a backdrop of renewed hostilities in Gaza, and outrage at the Guardian's handling of recent Israel-related stories, the two men were required to answer some serious criticism from the floor. Thanks to his position as kipa-wearing Israeli Jew and leftwing newspaper editor, David Landau was able to act as middleman between the audience and Alan Rusbridger, and he stood his ground firmly when making his defence.

He launched an impassioned tirade against the "misguided" Diaspora Zionists who "invest an inordinate amount of time bashing the Guardian, the BBC, and others, rather than helping Israel solve its existential dilemma". He castigated the "pro-Israel community [around the world]" for its "nascent McCarthyism" when it comes to their witchhunt against media outlets and individual journalists, describing their actions as both "dangerous and anti-democratic".

Instead of spending so much effort demonising those reporting the conflict, he said, true supporters of Israel ought to be trying to cure the cause of the problems in the region, not wasting time focusing on the symptoms, such as how the papers report on the troubles. Ignoring the hecklers, he ploughed on with his message, citing his own moral journey as reason for others to face up to reality, rather than burying their heads in the sand and claiming that the world is irredeemably biased against Israel.

He spoke of his initial outrage when he read Chris McGreal's infamous piece comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa. On re-reading the article recently, he found that his outrage had all but disappeared. "Now I think he does have a point," Landau explained to a hushed room. "Israel is heading towards a South Africa style dilemma."

He then pointed out that the Israeli press was full of stridently critical articles towards the incumbent government, and exposés of their crimes, yet their publication caused barely a ripple among diaspora Jews. However, when organisations like the BBC or the Guardian reported exactly the same stories, suddenly the gloves were off and everyone was up in arms. "But it doesn't register with them that they can see the same thing on Israeli TV, since they are obsessed with Guardian-bashing [rather than the story itself]," he said.

At the same time, Alan Rusbridger made it plain he was not intending to change the way the paper covered the conflict, no matter how much mud was thrown at either him or his journalists, asserting that "our editorial position is quite clear - we support the two-state solution, and we see Israel as a moral necessity". As far as he was concerned, the Guardian does not have "an obsession" with Israel, nor do his correspondents research their stories "carelessly" when it comes to covering the conflict. He stated that of "593 pieces about Israel on Cif, 200 are pro-Israel"; at the same time heralding Cif as being as "important a revolution as Gutenberg" in terms of pushing the media envelope.

While he and David Landau both agreed there was a severe problem in terms of abusive and racist reader comments on both Cif and the Haaretz talkback sites, the teething troubles shouldn't mean that "we end it in [the equivalent of] April 1451 just because people think it's a failed experiment", Rusbridger said. He spoke of the Guardian's commitment to finding solutions to the problematic commenters, using both moderators and fellow readers to bring the troublesome posters into line.

He also made an explicit apology for the Guardian's notorious Jenin editorial, which prompted applause from the more open-minded members of the crowd.

But despite their rebuttal of the charges levelled against them, I couldn't help but wonder how long their words would remain in the minds of their critics. Only a day later, and the outraged emails were flowing once more, one castigating the Independent for its "anti-Israel bias" under the heading "Enablers of murder"; another accusing them of "promoting Palestinian propaganda" and "publishing [pro-Palestinian] photographs without checking their veracity".

Despite David Landau's plea to "help us [Israel] think what to do [to solve the conflict] rather than parsing the Sunday headlines", it seemed that his words went in one ear and straight out the other. As he said, it's far easier to pin the blame on everyone else than to admit that - at the core of the issue - Israel bears no small share of responsibility for the state it finds itself in today.